Why Men Should Leave The Seat Up

At home the toilet seat stays down. Things can’t fall in, and Lia doesn’t like to touch the seat. Makes her feel gross.

But shared public washrooms got me thinking.

I want to be as courteous as possible for the next person, so sometimes when I’m feeling all do-goody I get a wad of TP and sop up all the piss covering the seat, lift the seat, piss in the bowl, and return the seat to the down position. It might seem like this is absolutely the kindest possible thing to do for women everywhere, but it isn’t and I’ll tell you why. The “Clean Seat Down” policy benefits the next person if she happens to be a woman, or a guy that needs to shit, but there’s third person who fucks everything up. If the next person’s a man needing to pee, there’s a good chance he’s not going to lift the perfectly clean seat. He’s going to enter the scenario with the best intentions possible, telling himself he has perfect aim and fully planning to leave the seat spotless. But alas, nobody’s aim is perfect all the time. Even a dude with really good aim is going to get a few tiny, piss-mist (or piss-missed) splatters on the seat which, unto itself doesn’t seem like a flagrant breach of public dual-sex bathroom etiquette. Piss mist is easy on the conscience. Lots of guys leave piss mist without a second thought. “Hey,” he thinks, “at least I’m not that asshole that pisses all over the seat.” He zips up and walks away feeling pretty good about himself. But really, he IS the asshole that fucked everything up.

Here’s how: The piss-mister puts the next pisser in a pickle. If the next pisser is a lady, she’s got to wipe up those little piss speckles, or hover. If the next pisser is a guy, he’s going to spy those few speckles of missed piss and go, “Hey! This seat’s all ready been peed on! I’m not lifting this seat and touching that gross piss.” So he pees, probably pretty carelessly, and from there things just get horrible. Guy after guy visit the stall with decreasing give a fuck about where their streams end up.

I’ve been there. If I show up and the seat’s a write off, I’m not at all careful about aiming. The damage is done. Total mob-mentality and diffusion of responsibility. I’m guilty. But I want to change. That’s why I’ve given this so much thought.

And all that thinking about public toilet seats lead to this epiphany: It’s better to leave the seat up.

I just checked with Lia and she said if she finds the seat up, she uses her foot to lower it. This is way better than Lia having to wipe up piss, or hover over a pissy seat.

And, if the seat’s clean when I show up, I don’t even have to touch it. I can lift it with my foot pretty easily.

Now that I’ve written this post I’ll probably also use a handful of toilet paper to wipe the pissed-on-seat before lifting it and leaving it. Just to be able to feel like a hero to all of womanity.

Did this post bring public bathroom horror stories to mind? Leave them in the comments!